For all the handwringing about Health Care Reform, it looks like the law is starting to have a positive effect on people’s lives. According to the Wall Street Journal:

The number of small businesses offering health insurance to workers is projected to increase sharply this year, recent data show, a shift that researchers attribute to a tax credit in the health law.

Many small businesses, however, remain opposed to the law. Some small businesses are benefiting from portions of the law, which includes a tax credit beginning this year that covers as much as 35% of a company’s insurance premiums.

According to a report by Bernstein Research in New York, the percentage of employers with between three and nine workers and which are offering insurance has increased to 59% this year, up from 46% last year. The report relies on data from a September survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.

This strikes me as especially significant in an economy characterized by high unemployment, a situation that naturally reduces the need for employers to provide new incentives to find good workers.

Apparently the country of New Zealand has amended its constitution to make Peter Jackson King of New Zealand and Labor Minister in perpetuity. This was done in a bid to ensure that the two new “Hobbit” movies are filmed there rather than on a soundstage in Hollywood (like the hugely successful “Plan 9 from Outer Space” was). Supposedly the films have a budget of about $500 million, which is something like 6 times the country’s GNP and enough to make about half the population millionaires, so everyone in New Zealand is cool with it (except the labor unions who are never happy about anything). Now Peter Jackson can pay the movie actors whetever he wants, and even have them do his laundry and mow his lawn (or till his outback, or whatever it is those guys have behind their houses in New Zealand). Everyone wins: Read more »

This is why Bill Clinton was, is, and will forever remain America’s most awesome president:

In 1999 or 2000, after the failed attempt to kill Osama bin Laden with some 80 cruise missiles launched into the al Qaeda camp in Khost, Afghanistan, a frustrated President Bill Clinton thought that somehow the United States could “scare the shit out of al Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp,” according to the 9/11 Commission.

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The New York Times reports that National Public Radio yesterday terminated its employment contract with contributor Juan Williams over comments he made on Bill O’Reilly’s talk show expressing fear and mistrust of Muslims who dressed in traditional clothing:

The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”

Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.

He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Juan Williams and other non-partisan journalists’ participation in Fox News roundtables have concerned media watchdogs for some time. The conservative opinion channel has long waged a dishonest propaganda campaign aimed at discrediting mainstream media organizations by labelling them as politically biased. One of the techniques the channel most frequently employs to propagate the idea consists of putting together discussion roundtables comprised of Right-wing partisan opinion journalists such as Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol one one side and mainstream media journalists on the other –with a partisan Fox News host (such as Brit Hume) acting as supposed impartial arbiter. Though there have been others over the years, Juan Williams was perhaps the most frequent and notable of the “useful idiots” who compromized their employers’ credibility and impartiality in exchange for lucrative face time on Fox News.

The move is long overdue.

When the right eats its own, we laugh.  My enemy’s enemy is still my enemy, but its a lot more fun to watch them fight it out from afar than to be all up in the tussle, you know?

Anyway, Megan McCain went and dropped some very commonsensical knowledge regarding “nutjob” Christine O’Donnell, who is a candidate for Senator from Denmark or something, when she said:

Christine O’Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office. She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business. And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how [much] lack of experience you have.

While this statement is humorous because you could easily change “running for public office” to “being a tv pundit” and it would apply to McCain, the reaction of other conservative bloggers to McCain’s claim is better:

this self-indulgent set of mega-breasts doesn’t belong anywhere near a TV studio commenting on anything.

and

I swear, if Meghan McCain gets any dumber she’ll be drooling on her boobs Read more »

An intestersting document making the blog rounds today (meaning I’ve seen it on  at least two sites) is a Pdf prepared by an organization call thirdway that aims to detail for taxpayers just how much of their tax bill goes toward paying for different Federal programs. The Pdf uses the example of an individual making $34,140 a year and paying $5,400 in Federal income taxes. The actual breakdown of that $5,400 is quite instructive and would likely help give the average citizen a much clearer picture of just what his tax dollar is funding. For instance, of that $5,400 these are the totals that go to funding various government programs:

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“Some executions in the US are being delayed because of a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental, one of the drugs used in lethal injections… Officials in California are pressing for its first execution in over four years to go ahead on Thursday evening as scheduled, because the state’s last remaining batch of sodium thiopental expires on Friday.” [BBC]